Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Book launch: THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY

[I'm pausing again in my science + poetry celebration to do something a bit different.]I'd like to toot the horn for a brand new book out today:The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan (published by Random House) and illustrated by Abigal Halpin. Check out Laura's blog here and Abigail's blog here.This is a new novel in verse for the middle grades (gr. 3-7) and I was fortunate to read an advance copy and create an educator's guide for the book. You can find a link to the whole guide here. (The activities are even correlated with the CCSS, if that's helpful to you.)Here's the publisher's blurb that describes the book: Is the pen mightier than a bulldozer? Fifth grade poets
stand up to save their school in this delightful debut novel. This year, Ms.
Hill’s fifth graders are writing poems to put into a time capsule. This year,
the school board plans to tear down their school to build a supermarket. They
might be the last fifth grade class of Emerson Elementary. No way! Inspired by
Ms. Hill’s 1960’s political activism, the students decide to save their beloved
school. As they circulate petitions, stage sit-in, and test the waters of
democratic action, personal questions, triumphs, and sorrows find their way
into their poems.Here are a few nuggets from the guide to whet your appetite!Timeframe

This novel in verse is broken into four
sections using the idea of “quarters” of the school year and months and days of
the calendar. Before each section, stop and talk about what usually happens
during this time of the school year (e.g., seasons, holidays, special events).
Then after each section, review those highlights and how they affected the
fictional students and what readers anticipate might happen next. Use the poem
titles to help guide the discussion about the big topics, themes, and ideas
along the way.

Before sharing this book, display a copy of
your class roster and invite students to consider what a book might be like
that features a cast of characters as big as a class. If you have a group photo
of the class, show that, too. Or show a vintage photo of a class from years
gone by available at Shorpy.com. Talk about how this book offers a verbal
“snapshot” of one class across a whole school year—all told through poems
written as if by 18 children in one fifth grade class.

Characters

There are 18 fifth grade students featured in
Ms. Hill’s class in THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY and the story
unfolds from their multiple points of view.

In addition, the students are portrayed in tiny
portraits on the cover of the book. Challenge students to visualize each of the
student characters in the book as they read, making notes about the unique
personality and situation of each character using the “class seating chart”
sheet below. They can decide where each student sits on the chart and what
key words they would use to describe each student and add those words to each
student’s desk. They might even consider which of these fictional students they
may want to be for a readers’ theater performance.

And there's heaps more in the guide itself and in the book to explore!

Related Books

Plus, if you'd like to link this verse novel with other related books of poetry, here you go. For further reading, here are other books of
poetry told through multiple (fictional) student perspectives:

About Me

Sylvia Vardell is a professor and author of the ALA bestseller POETRY ALOUD HERE, also POETRY PEOPLE, CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN ACTION, and the co-editor of THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY series (for K-5 and for 6-8), as well as the first digital anthologies of poetry for young people, the POETRY TAG TIME series-- all in collaboration with poet Janet Wong. Vardell is also the poetry columnist for ALA’s BOOK LINKS magazine. A frequent speaker at conferences, Vardell chaired the NCTE Poetry Award committee and has served as a consultant to the Poetry Foundation.